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Purpose -Innovation is crucial for attaining a competitive advantage for companies. Innovation, versus imitation, motivates companies to launch new products and become pioneers on markets. Many factors have been shown to be determinants for supporting an organizational innovative orientation. One of them is organizational culture. The objective of this paper is to analyze the organizational culture that fosters or inhibits organizational innovation and imitation strategy. Design/methodology/approach -The paper uses a sample of 471 Spanish companies for examining the hypotheses. Using hierarchical multiple regression analysis, it relates the effect of organizational culture with an innovation strategy. Findings -The results confirm the hypotheses. The paper finds that organizational culture is a clear determinant of innovation strategy. Moreover, adhocracy cultures foster innovation strategies and hierarchical cultures promote imitation cultures.Research limitations/implications -The main limitations are that data in the study were collected from one source for the cross-sectional design of this research. Practical implications -Managers should pay more attention to their organization culture if they pursue innovation/imitation strategies. Moreover, depending on this orientation (to be the first company to introduce in new markets or develop new products for a market versus to follow a pioneer), companies should promote different values and norms in their organizations. Originality/value -The main value of this paper is its analysis and testing of the relation of organizational culture and innovation orientation. The majority of the literature underlines the paper's seeking after organizational culture for innovation. However, this topic has not been studied in depth and requires attention to different organizational cultures and innovation orientations.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effect of organizational learning on technical innovation and the role of organizational culture as a determinant of the organizational learning processes.Design/methodology/approach -After reviewing the literature on organizational learning and its relationship with both, technical innovation and organizational culture, this paper analyzes those relationships using a sample of 451 firms.Findings -Findings reveal that organizational learning is positively associated with technical innovation and that organizational culture can foster both organizational learning and technical innovation but can also act as a barrier. Additionally, findings show that in order to enhance innovation neither a flexibility focus nor an external focus are enough. Both of them are necessary to characterize organizational culture.Research limitations/implications -The main limitations of this paper are the cross-sectional design of the empirical research and the fact that data were collected from one source only.Practical implications -Findings can guide managers' efforts in the development of an organizational culture which fosters both organizational learning and innovation since they show that adhocracy culture fosters both of them and that a hierarchy culture may act as a barrier for them.Originality/value -The paper focuses on the little-researched relations between organizational culture, organizational learning and innovation. Moreover, it focuses on the Spanish context, where there is a lack of studies on this issue. Finally, the paper provides empirical evidence that these relations exist. In particular, adhocracy enhances both learning and innovation the most, while hierarchy inhibits them most.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to study empirically the relationships among organizational culture and product innovation.Design/methodology/approachThe paper formulates some hypotheses from the literature review. These hypotheses are tested using structural equations modelling with data collected from 420 firms.FindingsOrganizational culture is considered to be one of the key elements in both enhancing and inhibiting innovation. The findings provide evidence about this proposition. While ad hocratic cultures could enhance the development of new products or services, hierarchical cultures inhibit product innovation.Research limitations/implicationsFirst, the data in the study were collected from one source. A second limitation is the cross‐sectional design of this research. Finally, only four of the six features of the competing value model have been evaluated. Apart from overcoming these limitations, suggestions for future research are: use longitudinal studies and multiple informants; study the moderator effect of some variables on the culture‐innovation relation, such as the type of innovation; and include other cultural types, that is, clan culture and market culture.Practical implicationsThe paper provides evidence that, first, in order to increase product innovation, companies should foster cultures with external and flexibility orientations. Moreover, the paper suggests that values, beliefs and assumptions that are coherent with ad hocratic culture are key drivers for developing new products or services.Originality/valueThe paper jointly examines in the same model the little‐researched links between organizational culture and product innovation.

Product innovation, in particular radical product innovation, is considered to have a positive effect on company success. As a consequence, there is growing interest in the literature on how to foster radical product innovation. Organizational culture is frequently cited as an antecedent. The underlying assumption is that the culture facilitates radical innovation by encouraging employees' innovative behavior. However, empirical research on the mediating role of employees' innovative behavior in the relation between organizational culture and radical product innovation is scarce. The purpose of this paper is to analyze this mediating role using a sample of Spanish firms. Findings show that adhocracy and market cultures are positively related with the degree of radicalness of product innovation and that employees' innovative behavior mediates that relation, but only in the case of the adhocracy culture.